Proactive Anger Management

While anger management is not a cure for psychopathology nor mental illness, it can serve to separate at-risk students from those who exhibit deficits in managing stress, anger, assertive communication and empathy/emotional intelligence.

The United States Postal Service has demonstrated the effectiveness of anger management as a violence prevention strategy. "Going Postal" is becoming a rarity in media reports of workplace violence as it has become a rarity in the real world of the Postal Services.

— George Anderson, LCSW, BCD, CAMF

The Postal Service has demonstrated the real-life benefits of
proactive anger management, consisting of understanding and recognizing anger and its causes, stress management, assertive communication, and empathy or emotional intelligence.

Rather than being psychotherapy, this approach to anger management is psycho-educational: it helps students gain life skills. By applying even a few of these skills to life, rage, anger, frustration, and stress are reduced. When this happens in the workplace, workplace efficiency often climbs, there are fewer days of sick leave taken, fewer call-offs, and fewer workplace incidents.

This proactive approach can be used with higher levels of management, and administration as well. Generally, it is done in a one-on-one setting and referred to as executive coaching.

This usually starts with an evidence-based assessment, individual recommendations, and a personalized curriculum. A post-test helps the student see how much they've learned and been able to apply. Often, this can be done in as few as a dozen sessions.

John Elder, MA., MFT, CAMF
Labels: anger management classes, evidence based, executive coaching, proactive anger management

George Anderson, MSW, BCD, CAMF
Diplomate, American Association of Anger Management Providers
http://www.andersonservices.com/
http://www.angertrends.blogspot.com/
www.anger-management-resources.org